_________________BELIEVE NOTHING, no matter where you read it, or who has said it,
not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense. - GAUTAMA BUDDHA

PunDBB Admin

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 11:51 am

hmm...not lookin' so healthy there. You sure you're not infected? How does the gas smell coming out of the airlock?

BunyipDBB Staff

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:29 pm

It's looking fine, Vince. That's what it's supposed to look like, taking the horrible phone camera into account. Smells so good... it should be in the Smithsonian...

_________________BELIEVE NOTHING, no matter where you read it, or who has said it,
not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense. - GAUTAMA BUDDHA

PunDBB Admin

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:04 pm

Good, good...those clumps look a lot like bacteria, that's all. Fruit scares me. Did you do anything to that fruit before you added it to the fermenter?

BunyipDBB Staff

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:08 pm

Clumps? You mean the churning in the must? There's an awful lot of orange residue in there from squeezing the slices in, plus raisins, etc, various spices etc. just to be sure I posted on the meadmaking forum though...

_________________BELIEVE NOTHING, no matter where you read it, or who has said it,
not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense. - GAUTAMA BUDDHA

PunDBB Admin

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 4:15 pm

Watched it full screen. Are those the ends of the oranges I'm looking at? They totally look like nasty bacteria colonies.

GrendelNinja Admin

Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 4:33 pm

Looks like the raisins to me.

_________________Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people. -- Thor Heyerdahl
Durch einen Stich bereits geschafft, erschlafft und ohne Saft und Kraft! -- Donald, examining a Deflator Dextrospirillus

Neo[deleted]

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 6:34 pm

TheWhat wrote:

Neo wrote:

Sadly??

Am I missing something here? Why don't you let him make his mash and shutup?

You're missing a lot of things. One thing is that I was replying to Bunyip and not you. Now go rant in D3 chat for 600 more days.

BunyipDBB Staff

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 12:56 pm

Well my first mead is probably going to need even more time than I'd thought - but the second one will be ready pretty much in time for New Years, which will be most excellent.

I gotta say, the second one looks and smells like it is going to be fricken outstanding.

I want to drink some NOW... damn it.

_________________BELIEVE NOTHING, no matter where you read it, or who has said it,
not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense. - GAUTAMA BUDDHA

Neo[deleted]

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:52 pm

It's not just a beverage. It's liquid engineering. >)

d3jakeAce

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 11:19 pm

Forgive me if you've said this somewhere else, but aside from the time investment, how does the cost compare? Does it come out cheaper in the end, or is more of a matter that you know what's going into what's going down your throat?

_________________"You don't need a deity floating among high with a huge fucking bat to understand the difference between right and wrong." -MD-2389

BunyipDBB Staff

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:14 am

This is the Dry Mead/Wine recipe I used (Roughly 18% ABV) - I'll be adding honey/flavorings before bottling. I also hadn't found some more reasonably priced honey (I bought retail instead of direct from the beekeepers for this batch)

Bunyip wrote:

5 Gallons will make you the equivalent of 25 bottles of wine. You're looking at about 2 bucks a bottle there.

Sweet Spiced Orange Mead (about 14% ABV)

Bunyip wrote:

I multiplied a 1 Gal Recipe by 3 Gal to fit my small carboy... total cost around 23 bucks

This batch I found a beekeeper and cut almost half from the price of the honey.
3 gallons = 11356 ML / 750 = 15 bottles of wine
$25/15= $1.54 per 750 ml bottle

Price wise it's not too bad at all. The key is getting quality ingredients for your must/mash at a low cost when home vinting/brewing. If you choose not to improvise equipment, that can set you back somewhere between one and two hundred dollars, and consumables (sanitizer, nutrients, cleaners etc) add some additional cost depending on how you want to handle that (bleach for example is cheap but not as easy to use as no-rinse sanitizers)

On a budget though, without sourcing ingredients other than by going to your local grocery store using what's on hand and so forth, you can make a 1 gallon batch of the Ancient orange mead for about 10-15 bucks - plus the spices if you don't have whole cloves and cinnamon sticks in your cupboard (steal from mom if you can!). Just use a plastic milk jug, or better yet a 1-gallon glass jug (rinsed, cleaned and sanitized), and instead of a fancy fermentation lock put a balloon over the mouth of the jug and make a tiny pinhole in it to allow gasses to escape. Make sure you secure the balloon to the jug just in case you get vigorous fermentation In 2-3 months you'll have the equivalent of 5 bottles of wine.

Of course if you plan to bottle your stuff, you'll need to buy some new bottles or scrounge up some used bottles, and figure out a way to cap them etc. For personal use it's probably easier to find some used screw-cap jugs and use those, but you can spend lots more on fancy bottles and capping/corking equipment.

_________________BELIEVE NOTHING, no matter where you read it, or who has said it,
not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense. - GAUTAMA BUDDHA

PerediabloAce

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 8:19 am

I found this place online. Is it a good deal? $32 for 12 new empty bottles.

_________________BELIEVE NOTHING, no matter where you read it, or who has said it,
not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason
and your own common sense. - GAUTAMA BUDDHA

PerediabloAce

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:24 am

hey, that is cheap! I need some for a project, unfortunately it isn't wine. I'm tired of removing labels from wine bottles for still life setups and sculptures. They have a mixed colors box that sounds cool. Thanks for the linky

_________________"To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master." _Milton Glaser

d3jakeAce

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 12:57 pm

Interesting... It's one of the lesser thought of "It's better when you make it yourself" ideas, but worth it, I'd imagine.

_________________"You don't need a deity floating among high with a huge fucking bat to understand the difference between right and wrong." -MD-2389